


Strawberry Rhubarb

by Glossolalia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fraternity, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Animal Sacrifice, Blood and Gore, Choking, Dark Comedy, Demon Summoning, Emotional Sex, Gratuitous Smut, Human Sacrifice, M/M, Power Bottom Keith, Suicide mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 07:07:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13608189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glossolalia/pseuds/Glossolalia
Summary: Shiro decides to summon a demon solely to prove to the internet you can't actually summon a demon. When everything his STEM major taught him is proven wrong (like Hell not only existing but having an Adidas outlet), the fraternity brother and his ravenous libido are forced to contemplate love through multiple lifetimes and why anyone in their right mind might pick mortality over a sick demonic arm and Ford Model looks.





	Strawberry Rhubarb

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I don't even know, haha. This was a trip.

Before the moon rotated and showed off her red, paunchy belly, Shiro anticipated the goat blood coagulated beneath his fingernails and candle wax puddled on the frat house's floor. Those two things, along with the black chalk used to draw his summoning circle, were garden-variety witchcraft. In fact, they were the least inspiring items for anyone who dabbled in black magic, but uninspiring or not, Shiro was proud of his tools. He was proud with good reason, too.

Jocks pursuing STEM majors don't cast spells, and Shiro wasn't only a jock with a STEM major, but a beefcake fraternity brother known for his spectacular personality, Ray-Bans and Vineyard Vines slim-fit pants.

Because of these essential traits that absolutely defined him as a person, practicing the craft required a learning curve.

Really, goat blood and wax are leagues ahead of lining pentagrams with cupcake scented Yankee candles and cramming chicken liver into a Vitamix for blood sacrifice. But those glaring missteps weren't what lead Shiro down his dignified path. It was the 'smudging incident' or when Shiro attempted to use his two-year-old Burberry cologne to purify his bedroom.

It was then his hand was possessed by a nameless entity who exhibited an unrelenting kink for smacking his ass in public. Shiro remedied this by sprinting into a church and taking a dip in a baptismal pool, but while facing a very bloody and very weepy Jesus Christ, Shiro questioned his methods. Clearly, whatever he was doing wasn't working out, but Shiro wasn't a quitter.

He read the wikiHow on demon summoning.

In time, Shiro stopped gagging at fresh blood and learned how to slice his love line without swearing to God and Mary alike, which he discovered was like saying his ex-girlfriend's name in bed and likely the worst way to proposition a demon for a sloppy blowjob.

The point is Shiro learned. He adapted to gruesome methods, and it would take an ethical tire fire to catch him off guard. Like the blood, wax, and chalk, Shiro anticipated most things.

Until his summoning circle exploded into a plume of rose smoke and deposited a demon into his room. Not a ghost, not the phantom shadow hand ready to jerk him off, but a physical demon.

What Shiro  _definitely_  didn't anticipate was having his cheekbone crushed against his rug by a man two heads shorter, sporting leather running tights, a red snapback and milk-white fangs.

Apparently, there was an Adidas outlet in Hell.

"Isn't this what you called me here for, Daddy —"

A cackle like a rusted knife shot above Shiro's head followed by the wet slap of teeth mashing bright red bubblegum.

Fingers slid into Shiro's bangs and wrenched back his head, popping his neck and sending a muscular burn from his right ear to the nearby shoulder blade. He grunted but wasn't brave enough to resist. Somehow, even with potential death blinking above him like a Broadway marquee, Shiro's attention redirected to the dorm window. There a fat, crimson moon floated between the pines, watching like a Peeping Tom and violently blushing. Her embarrassment sucked the color from the bedroom and highlighted the sudden greyscale like spilled Merlot.

Shiro knew a red moon wasn't on the calendar. A full moon yes, but not a red one, and he applauded the dark side's attention to aesthetic detail because the bloody tinge was amplifying his need to shit himself in fear.

No longer looking at the moon, Shiro reached for the bed frame legs. A knee slammed onto his lower back, knocking his solar plexus flat, and Shiro dropped his hand.

"The Big Guy's little black book said you're uncut."

Shiro went limp and stared at the dust beneath his bed. He  _was_  uncut, but why would Satan keep that logged? Deciding then wasn't the time for the universe's secrets, he attempted to crawl forward again. The demon's fingers curled around his throat, and Shiro thought about his mom.

"I'm on the clock," the demon purred. His knee slowly lifted, but all Shiro noted was that rough voice. Beautiful. It was beautiful. "Hurry up and take a seat before I turn you into a eunuch."

* * *

 

The real question being: How does one find himself soliciting sex from Satan's Gay-4-Pay harem?

Well, by being a terrible person, of course.

It's pathetic, in theory. A mockery of self-esteem equated only to collecting roadkill for a living. Too bad Shiro's self-esteem was infuriatingly high.

Once upon a time — it began as most things do — there was a girl in a tower, a maid by the cinders, a princess in a glass coffin, a dragon to butcher — on a dark and stormy night —

Actually, it started with sex addiction, a college campus and a man who could have defended the universe but preferred getting his rocks off. This man was self-aware, too. One who knew what he was doing and how to do it without being labeled for his wrongdoings.

_There's a formula for being good_ , Shiro thinks and rubs his thumb along his biology book's glossy spine. He's versed in standard liberal arts theorems and maxims, but being good is Shiro's favorite equation to solve for the class. It's an ever-changing idea and singular to none.

Shiro is seated beneath a honey locust, lap weighed down by notes he'll never reference again and a hand occupying a paper coffee cup. The October day is lukewarm, warm enough to warrant lightweight cotton hoodies embellished with designer insignias and matching running shoes. Around him, the student body is bustling through the clove and leaf-fell weather. It's late afternoon on a Friday, which means curtain call for Garrison University's rigorous midterms.

More importantly for Shiro, it implies celebratory jungle juice and getting laid.

The latter would be more rousing if Shiro hadn't hung his resources out to dry the summer between sophomore and junior year, but he's in college, so why not give it the old college try? There's always a chance he could get lucky and rekindle interest in someone who was passable, and even if he's not exactly holding his breath, he figures it's better to be hopeful.

Shiro grimaces, rehearsing small talk in his head. He thumbs through potential questions about exams, and for the millionth time, light speed. For some reason, light speed is the go-to.

He reaches up and thoughtlessly fingers the black U-shaped pendant hanging from his throat. It's onyx, shiny and always warm whether or not it's touched his skin. Shiro looks at the gem as his stress stone, so it makes sense he's currently petting it. He's teeming with social anxiety.

"Stop it," he whispers to himself, roughly dropping his hand.

If someone notices his flirtations are tied to a script, then he'll be ruined. Shiro prefers to maintain his facade because as far as campus knows, he doesn't bury bodies. He's simply too focused to seriously date, which is a little true and a little false.

Either way, he prefaces all sex with that explanation. Sometimes he romanticizes it, too. No need to belittle a one nighter. It can still be important.

"That's the face of a man who either smelled his own fart or is weighing the pros and cons of making out with the Large Hadron Collider."

Shiro leaves his head and glances up to see Matt in front of him. Surprised Matt managed to sneak up on him like that, Shiro arches an eyebrow and neutrally smiles.

"Let's just say Iverson's quiz made me want to split my own particles."

"I put that quiz together," Matt reminds him, shoving his glasses up his bridge. "It wasn't hard as long as you studied, and you did. If he finds out I helped you, then I'm done for."

"My lips are sealed. Blood Pact."

Matt crouches down in front of Shiro. His hands hang over his knees. "What's the plan for tonight? Any frat mansion mischief up for grabs? I have blackmail. You have to invite me."

Shiro tilts back his head and sighs. "Standard event with a sorority. I have it written down in my planner, but I haven't looked at it today. No themes, though."

"I bet you're  _so_  disappointed."

"Is it really a party if I'm not wearing a toga?"

Matt feigns consideration. "For some, it probably isn't."

Shiro checks his Apple watch and swallows another sigh. If there is a party, then it's up to him to set up beer pong tables and command the freshman. The fraternity hierarchy has always been lost on him, but it's easier on Shiro's conscience to play the part and be the nice guy than let his brothers traumatize eighteen-year-olds with condescending remarks and 'queer boy' jokes.

"You're invited," Shiro tells Matt. He sets aside his coffee so he can stand. "But I probably won't be up late. Today murdered me twenty times over, and I want to  _properly_  embrace death."

"Go for it. You like the occult," Matt reminds him. Not only is the willowy redhead a certified genius bound for NASA, but he's Shiro's keeper, too. Shiro isn't sure which role is harder to play. "If worse comes to worst, then I'll use one of your weird books and revive you."

Shiro rolls his eyes, and cracking his neck, retrieves his drink. "None of it is real. You'd be better off pulling a Frankenstein than reading a spell book or drawing a sigil."

"A joke," Matt clarifies, watching Shiro stride ahead of him. "It was a joke. Trust me, Shiro. I know saying you're into the occult is a nice way of saying you like reading about how stupid humans used to be. It's good for the scientist's ego."

"Used to be —" Shiro snorts. "You're too nice."

* * *

 

Shiro wants to get laid, but at what cost? For reasons unknown to him, he's always had the hardest time recycling bedmates. There's psychology there, but Shiro hates therapists.

He peruses the fraternity's cramped living room, scanning individuals with veiled disinterest. Music is blaring, bodies are emitting dense humidity, and he's trying to look like he's having fun when he'd rather be hunkered down in his room, scrolling news apps and picking through the research needed for next semester's core classes and labs. Anything is better than the obligation to pilfer through another Greek event featuring shouting and bad political opinions.

Looks aside, it doesn't make sense as to why he's there.

If Shiro was going into business or finances, then maybe Greek life would benefit him, but considering most of his classmates are in the Speed School quad, Shiro is aware this is an abortive experience. He doesn't mean to stereotype either. There are diverse fraternities, but in his, he's not only the token minority but the token STEM major who won't be a doctor.

He's also sucked dick, but no one except Matthew Holt knows that. Shiro has good reason to believe he isn't the only one in the house who has, but sometimes it's like there's a neon dick etched across his forehead. His rampant bisexuality goes beyond being an accessory, suspending him above concealment. More than likely because all Shiro thinks about outside academia is sex, but it's physical, too. When he looks in the mirror, he glows queer like a healthy pregnancy.

Shiro spots the aforementioned Matthew across the room. His contacts are in, and he's now handsome enough for conquests. It's revolting knowing Matt prods at his past lays, but not because Shiro thinks there's less value in a person after sex. Again, it's some psychological malformation he can't digest, and while annoying, is ever-present.

After finding no one new, it becomes clear Shiro isn't going to find a bedmate. Sticking to his word, he waves at Matt and points at the stairs. Matt nods, giving him the thumbs up, and Shiro ascends, relieved Matt doesn't question his reclusiveness. Matt's understanding is a lazy river shooting off an ocean storm with winds that sing — 'but brah, Shiro, why? Brah — it's fun…'

Strolling down the hall, Shiro spots his wallmate, Ron. He's a linebacker with hulking shoulders and a shaved head. His beady eyes land on Shiro, and Shiro knows that look. It's the expression prefacing a conversation he wants to avoid. Like a mantra, Shiro attempts to internally will him away, imagining Ron falling out a nearby window or getting hit by a speeding school bus.

Ron's eyes jerk away from Shiro, and as if Shiro's not there, jogs past him toward the staircase.

Shiro gives a full body shudder.

In response, God sends the Virginia Woolf painting stolen from the English department flying off her hook. Shiro ignores the fatality and quickens his stride.

Once squirreled away in his room, Shiro changes into sweats and a hoodie. He knows he should shower, but he's too tired and climbs onto his bed instead. Reaching for the laptop at the foot of the mattress, Shiro contemplates porn but is devastated by his desperation and decides against it. He pops open his bookmarks and delves into backwoods internet searches. At least there's something productive about filing away uselessly grotesque facts, threads, forums and articles.

This productivity is what Matt meant by the occult. Sometimes it's the occult, but most of the time it's phobias and general human depravity like exploitation films and true crime that borderlines fetishizing. Shiro isn't sure how, but the rabbit hole is the only way he knows how to feel like he's doing something outside of school. He has a part-time campus job, but inserting numbers into a database for Sam Holt doesn't inspire a swelling sense of purpose.

Shiro steers himself from human furniture to grandmother serial killers who poisoned their grandchildren to elderly possessions and from possession to the quicksand that's demon summoning. He's seen the threads floating around. He even has boilerplate sigil knowledge, but Shiro doesn't like to delve into paranormal delusions too often.

Tonight is different, though.

He feels bad about himself, and to repair that misery, he reads accounts about summoning succubi and incubi. Shiro loud laughs in spurts, wiping tears with both hands because these people have clearly lost their minds in classic cases of Mountain Dew loving vitamin D deficiency. He wonders how many Dorito crumbs have accidentally scratched their dicks while they jerked off to their demonic hallucinations, but he snorts at the thought.

"Holy shit," Shiro says, dryly laughing. Before he can stop himself, he erupts and laughs at the ceiling, the cackle gross and wicked. "These fucking  _morons_."

Shiro scrolls, inspired and hunting for instructions on summoning a tried and true demon. He fondly thinks about how he could use demons to satisfy his miserable libido, but more than anything, Shiro needs to prove the lonely imbeciles wrong. It's the scientist in him whipped to stiff peaks by jock entitlement.

Mostly, it's a shame Shiro doesn't let it go.

Maybe then the first summoning circle wouldn't have smoked, and maybe — just maybe — he wouldn't have been forced to relinquish his humanity.

* * *

 

There's the saying, 'fucked her mouth,' but Shiro has never heard, 'fucked by his mouth' until Keith swallows him in one fluid motion and throat-fucks him raw.

"Keith! Fuck, fucking  _fuck_."

That's the demon's name. Keith.

It's a doozy compared to names like Amdusias, Ukobach, and Haagenti. Shiro thinks about demons and it conjures images of Hell's many kings and kingdoms and maybe even burnt human skin stacked on top of toast, but when he thinks about someone named Keith, he pictures bologna and cheese loaf and hears the ghostly twang of a banjo floating from the vents.

He probably wasn't important enough for someone like Baphomet, and Shiro accepts that. Anyway, he's getting his cock sucked, which is  _really_  what he wanted, not validation.

"God, that's really fucking good."

"Stop talking about God, you paltry fuck."

"Oh – sorry." Shiro clears his throat, trying to seem sincere. "It's a bad habit."

Shiro imagines Keith is what it's like to be fucked by a Halloween decoration. A velvet Halloween decoration with feverish body heat and zero gag reflex. Keith drools down his cock, sloppy with his lips masking fangs and head aggressively bobbing. He's all sculpted shoulders, a perfect muscular back that flexes with every lift-drop of the head. Shiro wants to grab his hair and violently shove his cock toward his uvula, but the hat is in the way, and also, he's scared.

Keith swipes a strand behind his ear, messily slurping, and Shiro notes the hair is shiny. Not in a greasy way, but the licorice stalk way that's intentional and much too clean. He wants to inspect his face more, but all Shiro can see are pink lips sheathing him again and again, rubbing veins.

It's hypnotic, a pendulum. Shiro wrinkles his nose when hot pulverizes his navel, filling and overflowing him like a neglected bathtub.

Shiro digs his nails into the sheets, mouth open and panting. It's been too long since he busted a nut down someone's throat, but when he collapses onto his elbows, ready to finish, Keith lifts his calculative gaze and pauses. His mouth halos the flushed tip. When the wait becomes too much, Shiro sharply levels his chin to stare at Keith. He questions him with his panicked gaze, naked chest heaving and falling, as his heels dig deeper into the mattress.

Keith deliberately rubs his tongue along the leaky slit, and Shiro bucks, shouting into the room's dark. Keith pulls off, inelegantly wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sits on his feet.

"Is that the best you can do?" he asks. His voice is too cold, and though gravely, too perfect. It even has an eerie echo, too. Keith's throat is an empty church. "You're a human in your prime."

Shiro stammers. Normally he's witty or at least polite enough to be charming, but all he can do is stare.

"Don't come," Keith says, slipping his hands beneath his waistband. Shiro's guts throb and the sudden ache winds tight, promising to follow Keith's order. "Good boy. What a good, good boy. I'm going to ride you now, and if you come, then I'll suffocate you with a used jockstrap. Think about the pathologist, Shiro. He'll have to dislodge it with forceps and tell your dad you were being a half-baked slut with one of your fraternity brothers. That's a closed casket case for sure."

He doesn't mean to blurt, but he does. "Can I come at all?"

"We'll see."

Keith's cock springs free, hard and thick with a fat tip. Shiro doesn't overthink how he was freeballing beneath leather and kicks briefs off his ankles, too mesmerized to remove his socks. Keith stares at the HUF socks in disdain, but he ignores the offense and tugs off his black Adidas high tops. Keith snaps his fingers and an unlabeled glass vial appears in his calloused hand.

_I might die_ , Shiro thinks. The thought is propelled through conflicting emotions so it comes out too gleeful. He sobers himself, but his dick stays hard.  _I really might die here._

Shiro learns the bottle is lube.

The tacky liquid pours onto Keith's fingers, black with a white glow. Shiro tries to contemplate cancer risks, but he's distracted by Keith reaching behind himself, steadying his torso on the other hand. He can't see Keith's fingers slip over his hole, but Shiro imagines the pucker well.

Keith's navel is stacked with dense pubic hair fanning down his inner thighs, meaning he doesn't shave or wax. Shiro wants to drag his tongue over the wiry mess, froth it with saliva and the charcoal lubricant. Keith is a demon, so he assumes the taste would be sweet enough to burn his throat like sugar. Shiro's cock twitches, and he moans, staving off his dignity loss.

"Fuck," Keith whispers, determination on his otherwise unmoved face. He never closes his lips again, but he shuts his eyes, breaths becoming louder, sharpening.

After Keith is three fingers deep and satisfied with his handiwork, he straddles Shiro's lap. Keith admires Shiro's chest, but he doesn't waste much time. He wraps a too warm palm around Shiro's base and sits back, rubbing the tip against his hole. Shiro watches Keith's abs flex, and he fantasizes about how big his cock must look next to that fluttering ring.

He imagines the stretch; the slight strain as Keith sinks; how Keith is going to bounce on his veiny prick until they both come buckets. Shiro hopes he murders him like a black widow when they're done. He wants Keith to drop fangs into his ribs and suck his innards until nothing is left.

Sexual gratification from dying isn't constituted as healthy, but Shiro has never claimed to be perfect. He figures there are levels, and this ideation is baby tier. If he starts beating his meat to funeral home pamphlets, then he'll call the university wellness office. That or Jesus Christ.

Jesus wouldn't give him a blowjob, though.

In one fluid drop, Keith bottoms out, ripping a groan from Shiro's barrel chest. He thinks Keith might want to catch his breath, adjust to the intrusion, but Shiro is wrong. Actually, he's never been more wrong in his life because Keith presses a hand against Shiro's throat. He uses his neck as support to lift his ass without freeing Shiro from his hole's vice grip. Keith is tight, molten. It's the kind of tight that's unbearable and crosses Shiro's eyes, numbs his tongue.

"Don't worry," Keith murmurs, slamming his hips and shooting hard breaths from his nose. The mattress screams beneath them, and Shiro can relate. "I'll know when you're about to die."

Shiro nods and drops back his head, much too trusting when under the influence of a deep fuck. He entirely misses the pleased twinkle in Keith's eyes, and what a pity because that insidious smirk could have closed the universe's gaping wounds. Shiro's oxygen intake grows thinner and thinner with Keith's lift and drop routine. Shiro rolls back his shoulders and gutturally groans. He has the nerve to smile, red-faced and blood vessels bursting as his vision becomes cotton.

"What a pretty daddy," Keith croons, but Shiro hears the ugliness, a disapproval that reams him out like Judgement Day. "Didn't know you could be a daddy with your daddy's credit card."

Shiro takes the humiliation and lathers it on his hands, grunting louder when his balls tighten. He wants Keith to punch him, and like that, Shiro's body closes like a fist. He needs to come, but Keith is fleecing him, taking his sweet time to reorient Shiro with his meager humanity.

"Humans are so weak," Keith whispers, terse and concealing what Shiro hopes is need. Keith presses on his trachea, and Shiro knows he only has seconds before the curtain drops. He's going to blackout, and he's not sure if he's going to wake up. "How could you pick humans, Shiro?"

His hand lifts and Shiro gasps hard enough to hurt. He sucks in air, but each inhale is interrupted by Keith's rocking weight. Keith's thighs start to shake, and he shoves off the hat to card his fingers through his hair. Shiro watches him ride, and it's precise. He's seen stiffer belly dancers.

Shiro reaches for Keith's bobbing cock and strokes him in time with his quickening hips. Normally, Shiro tries to spare his wallmates, but when Keith's throaty moaning escalates into gasping shouts, Shiro refuses to show mercy. He pounds upward, jackhammering Keith who falls forward and slams his palms onto Shiro's dense pectorals. Shiro doesn't stop stroking. Rather, he pumps faster, hazily eyeing Keith who is whoring himself out, singeing bedsheets with toes.

"Fuck me like you're trying to kill me," Keith orders, haggard and subhuman.

Shiro's next words leave him like a cassette player rewound and played forward. "As if you even know what it's like to fear death."

Keith seems to suffer from the same affliction, suddenly smiling. He huffs a whimper that becomes despairing laughter. "You're one to talk."

Shiro's heart is soon covered by scudding rain clouds. He blinks, and a rush similar to the moment when his hand took on a life of its own worms its way through his soft tissue.

He grabs Keith's hair and yanks his head to the side so they can match gazes. Shiro is still grunting, sweating and fucking Keith out. He knows he speaks, but he doesn't hear himself.

"Only an idiot would try to avenge the person he loves seconds after he dies. What were you  _thinking_?"

The sentence ruptures from Shiro like a taut cyst. It's an unsourced infection though Keith apparently recognizes the drainage. He doesn't stop riding Shiro, but his eyes fling open, two periwinkles preserved in napalm. Keith backhands Shiro, and with a whipping head and shout, Shiro comes. Keith's fury seems to ebb because he clings to the bedsheets beside Shiro's head and trembles, abruptly shooting cum across the man's chest and throat. Keith screams, and he is the ghost of a murdered animal, haunting the world's moors and their horizontal shadows.

The display is ferociously human. Keith's cry patches the room like star moss, and if Shiro looks closely, he'll find Delphinus and Crux.

"I thought I was doing the right thing!"

Whether or not it's demon perspiration, Shiro can't tell, but Keith takes on a burnt scent. It's cinders after lightning strikes a cabin dead. Carbonized innards and all.

Shiro tugs him down and presses their foreheads together. Breathing heavy and violent, Keith sweeps his palms down Shiro's soiled chest, continuing to rock as if drinking in their final seconds together. He cinches Shiro's waist and blood drives through his unnecessary heart.

"Don't remember any of this," Keith orders, grinding his teeth.

"You're pretty unforgettable."

Keith reaches for Shiro's pendant and wraps his fingers around it. He rubs his thumb along the smooth surface over and over again.

Shiro doesn't know if he's casting a spell, but he doesn't ask.

* * *

 

A rooster crows, the sun bleeds into the honorable frat house, and Keith is still there.

Naked with his chest pressed against Keith's back, Shiro rises onto an elbow, too disoriented to properly put the situation into context.

A man with a face infuriated even in sleep is beneath his duvet, trustingly conked out in Shiro's presence. He's impossibly beautiful with features that would be better left to porcelain if it weren't for his lethal cheekbones and impeccable eyebrows. Wearing thickly tousled hair blacker than sin, kiss-swollen lips and a chiseled body, Keith can't be real. Shiro swears his skin is binge drinking the entire sunrise.

He wants to laugh, but he's afraid to wake Keith. There's no getting around it, though. After months of trying, he's successfully summoned a demon, so he chuckles. Nervously, of course.

For only six attempts, Shiro can't say he's done a shabby job.

There has to be a way to send him back, though. He can't imagine a demon would fixate on one human for long and especially not a human like Shiro. He's not morally upstanding, so there isn't much to manipulate. All he's capable of is annoying Keith with questions about what it means to exist, but Shiro would bet his tuition demons are sick of replying to human existentialism.

Shiro attempts to slide off the bed one centimeter at a time, but he doesn't make it far. A hand snatches his wrist. Black nails curl into his skin, threatening a vital vein. Keith is staring at him, gaze hollow and evidently unimpressed with the meaty fuck doll that summoned him.

"Where are you going?" Keith asks, dull but with a voice that could carry into the next century. It's a smoker's voice painted over a young man's dewy tenor. "I'm not done with you."

Shiro isn't used to the following feeling. It's his libido gushing with need, burning beneath his belly button and leaving him half-hard against his thigh. He's never wanted someone the morning after, and realizing this, Shiro clears his throat. The noise is disgracefully soaked.

Keith's eyes dart between Shiro's quivering legs. "That's sweet of you."

"I was going to send you back," he says, staring down Keith's talons. "I thought this was a one time deal."

Keith startles Shiro with a smile. "Someone didn't read the fine print."

"There wasn't any fine print," Shiro says, but now he's not sure, and he's shaking  _harder_. It's the intensity in Keith's violet-blue eyes. For someone from hell, he's never seen so much ice in a single person, but that's it. Keith isn't a person. "I explained why I was summoning and —"

Keith gingerly tugs him closer, but the growing pressure on Shiro's wrist is not a request. Shiro leans in, and as much as he wants to break the haunting eye contact, he doesn't. There's something familiar about Keith, but Shiro can't place it yet.

He thinks it's somewhere between the shadows that plume at the outer edges of his eyes and his Cupid's bow, which he wants to kiss again.

"You butchered your love line to summon me, which means we made a pact. I solve your sexual and emotional incompetency and you solve whatever problem I come up with. It's not a new concept, Shiro." Keith loosens his grip and glides it up Shiro's arm, climbing his elbow and stopping on his bicep. "Do you know how rare it is to be summoned by someone who lifts?"

"Mountain Dew," Shiro says as if that explains everything. "I don't drink Mountain Dew."

"It's battery acid," Keith answers. He's agreeing, Shiro realizes. The pride he feels is concerning enough to make him look away. Shiro's brain is bursting with questions, and apparently, a clairvoyant, Keith addresses this. "Ask away. You're about to combust."

Shiro speaks against his will. The forced sensation gags him. "What happens if I can't complete your task?"

He coughs when he finishes, and as if deep breathing inside a burning ball pit, Shiro's lungs sting. The scent lands on his tongue like melting plastic, but it's quickly replaced by sulfur.

Unmoved, Keith pulls Shiro closer. He lifts his knees and informally spreads his legs, bearing all. "One step at a time. Think about your part when I'm done making your dick wet."

"Are you going to consume my life force?" Shiro tries again.

This time, Keith laughs.

It's a raucous noise, fearless and masterly composed. The music opens Shiro's chest like a pantry, and he cauterizes the notes onto his forebrain, swearing he knows the melody, knows the way Keith's mouth opens and captures white stars on night's necrotic black.

Shiro doesn't know where the boldness comes from, but he grabs Keith's bangs and clenches. Keith doesn't start. He hums.

At that approval, Shiro tightens his grip. He forces Keith to stare at him, and the demon's laughter continues from where it left off, bubbles between his lips. It's mocking, but somehow, leaping from an earnest pool hidden at the bottom of Keith's neck.

Shiro wants to kiss him. He wants to make him feel good.

This is magic at its darkest. Manipulated will and animal magnetism is a one-way ticket to sinking his soul. Shiro has never cared about his soul before. He doesn't want to start now.

Keith encircles Shiro's neck with his hands and digs into the skin. He draws blood this time, but Shiro doesn't smack aside his hands. He crawls between Keith's thighs, and Keith frees him.

They kiss and it's frenzied, explorative with puffs of hot air and digging fingernails. When Keith sucks his tongue, winded and clawing, Shiro's humanness seems like a moot point. It's the supernatural allure, Shiro tells himself, but the supernatural is real and so are his herniating nerve endings. Shiro's fingers tangle in Keith's hair, and he rips back Keith's head, suddenly smug.

"Stop being benevolent and fuck me," Keith orders, impatiently searching Shiro's face. When Shiro inspects him back, Keith's eyes lock onto Shiro's mouth. "Now."

Shiro isn't dense.

He knows thinking when he sees it, but this is a demon with knives for nails. Disobeying could result in castration. Shiro yanks his hair harder, and Keith hisses, nose wrinkling toward a snarl.

"This is benevolent?"

"Soft and nervous," Keith answers, mocking him. "You're  _scared_."

Shiro roughly shoves back one of Keith's thighs. He fingers him open, and after finding victory in Keith's fluttering lashes, presses his cockhead to the sloppy, consuming place. He thrusts forward with trained hips, but he can tell it won't be deep enough, not from this angle anyway. Shiro groans, mouth pouring obscenities because Keith's channel is a sweltering vice grip. The give is easy enough from the night before, but the heat is more consuming, greedier and begging to be doused with ribboning cum.

Keith's hand lunges and seizes Shiro's throat again.

Shiro doesn't need to be told. He ruts forward, hips crashing against the backs of Keith's thighs like smacks. Keith rolls his lips and closes his eyes. Beneath Shiro, his chest rattles, a death call of sorts, but Shiro sees it's actually the rage in his rasping, the fight to admit he feels  _really_  good.

"More," Keith orders. "Make me come from this – Just this,  _this_  –"

Satisfied with the words, Shiro bends Keith in half. For some reason, he wonders if Keith can bleed. There's just something about him that feels like the receptacle for a massacre.

"More?" Shiro mocks, headboard beating the wall.

Keith claws Shiro's chest, popping open skin that drips. Keith cries out, screaming his human's name like he knows it better than God himself, and Shiro bleeds for them both.

* * *

 

Thrillers and horror movies imply only a warlock can see his summoning, spurring slapstick scenarios where the warlock is wearing a trench coat and talking to himself in public or kissing the air with a roving tongue. After, the summoning bids goodbye, promising they'll be reunited in another realm on a someday afternoon that's likely later than sooner. Life is long. Souls are eternal. Love will find a way. There's always a moral to the story even if that moral is hope.

Shiro knows there's no moral to his story.

He believes in demons but still doesn't believe in karmic cycles, and this disbelief is amplified when Keith descends the fraternity mansion's stairs, shirtless and sex-rumpled. Keith's presence turns every pounding head seated in the post-party living room, and the brothers become a dog pack catching a smoke house's scent. One is leaned against the door frame. He immediately strides toward Keith, pupils a vacant, matte black, and Shiro is struck by sensations so foreign he wonders if his appendix is rupturing. His guts cramp, his fingers and toes become the coldest kind of numb, and the urge to choke his friend is primitive.

Keith reaches for the brother's chin and swipes his thumb over his chapped bottom lip. His name is of the Brad variety, and he believes with all his heart Bud Light is better than craft beer.

Keith flashes fangs. "Want to go upstairs –"

"No way," Shiro says and boldly grabs Keith's wrist, yanking it down. "No way in Hell. This is my cross to bear. Don't punish my whole fraternity because I summoned you."

"Is it punishment?" Keith asks, dry. "Were you being punished last night? Also, nice religious metaphor, loser."

"Yes –" He stops and reconsiders. "Willingly punished. Putting them under your spell and then fucking them isn't right. That's literally assault."

Keith crosses his arms and ambles into the living, abandoning his first potential victim who's left to wordlessly wait in the hall. Shiro glances at him and frowns. He's soullessly gawking at the uninspired wallpaper, frozen in whatever spell Keith isn't interested in finishing.

"Demons don't force, Shiro," Keith explains, dragging his socked feet. "We play on inherent desire. We wipe clean social expectations and give humans the purest form of free will there is. They're doing exactly what they want, and it seems your brothers want to do me."

"Freewill under a contract."

Keith pauses and examines the male smorgasbord seated on the oversized L-shaped couch. In the background,  _Call of Duty_ triumphantly blares. Keith makes his choice and collapses onto two wide laps. A hand begins to stroke Keith's tousled hair, but the motions are slow and exact, too robotic. Shiro clears his throat and enters the room after Keith, examining the glassy-eyed men.

The demon stretches along his human chaise. "Contracts only happen if you summon us. This is as organic as it comes. Don't turn your jealousy into a moral crusade. I can see through it."

"I don't have reason to be jealous."

"Cutting," Keith teases, but the playful tone hides annoyance. The same hand drags down Keith's shoulder and squeezes the very bicep Shiro tried bruising the night before. "Make your heart beat a little slower the next time you want to try and lie to me. It at least feels like an effort."

"A demon is threatening my friends," Shiro murmurs, keeping a sharp eye on where the hand is headed.

It lands on Keith's sharp hip bone and drums its fingers as if matching Keith's thoughtful expression. Keith closes his eyes and the petting continues, growing gentler and far more implicative. When it strokes Keith's abs, Shiro's blood pressure greets the pearly gates.

"We should eat something," Keith suggests.

"Demons need to eat," Shiro says, barely paying attention as he watches the middle finger trace the muscular indentions he sucked hickeys onto.

"We don't need to eat, but eating still feels good."

Shiro understands complex chemical compounds, can effortlessly track stars, and mentally subtract and divide mammoth exponents without double checking his work. His genius has been standard fare since he entered private school in the Chicago suburbs, but when it comes to basic human tasks, Shiro sucks an impressive big one. Things like cooking baffle him, but he can make a decent pancake stack and fry bacon perfectly crisp, so that's what he offers Keith.

Shiro scratches his throat, thinking. "Do you like pancakes?"

"Does anyone hate pancakes?" Keith asks from his man-bed.

"People with Waffle House devotions. You'd be surprised by how many people treat it like church."

Keith blows a wet raspberry but gives no opinion. Shiro pushes away from the doorframe, and like the contracted help he apparently is, makes Keith's breakfast.

When the Folgers drips its final drop, Keith seats himself at the breakfast bar and watches Shiro whip Bisquick. His legs are crisscrossed on the stool, a butterfly, and his elbows rest propped on the concrete countertop. Shiro senses his piercing gaze but says nothing. His chest is beginning to ache from the clawing, and his thighs are sorer than a morning after leg day. It's too quiet, but Shiro isn't sure how to have a casual conversation with someone who can see through him.

He cuts to the chase instead, not looking up from the white batter. It brings back memories from the night before, and Shiro residually tastes the cum he sucked clean from Keith's fingers.

"Last night, you mentioned me picking humans. Is that something we all do? Pick between humanity and life elsewhere?"

Keith answers evenly, but the quickness gives him away. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Shiro pours the first of many puddles onto the buttered griddle. Waiting for the gaseous bubbles, he grabs his mug, shrewdly humming. "I thought demons were supposed to be good liars."

"It's hit or miss," Keith says, and though belatedly, he smiles back. "Some people are worth more effort than others. You, not so much."

He takes the hit in stride. "Why do I get the feeling I'm supposed to be more afraid of you than I am?"

"Because you are," Keith admits and taps his nails against the mug's side. He thoughtfully inspects Shiro. "But you don't relate to humans very well, so it makes sense. You have an unconventional threshold. It's a nice change of pace because you also don't resent people. Most people who want to summon demons have a bone to pick with humanity, and it's boring."

Shiro can't help but be endeared. "Are you implying you like people?"

Shrugging, Keith looks down at his mug. Hair falls in his eyes and he smiles, shaking his head before looking up again. "It's hard to not like them when I started out as a person."

"I'll withhold the urge to know everything there is to know about dying and flip these pancakes instead."

Keith waits until Shiro's done flipping disks to speak. "You're polite, too. That's a change."

"I always thought I was regular," Shiro confesses and turns on the gas stovetop to fry off his bacon. Shiro carefully peels the fatty slices apart and thinks. "I know I'm conventionally attractive and private school smart. I'm rich, too, but that's a dime a dozen at colleges like these. I'm a pretty common subset of the privileged elite, but we're all alike in several ways."

"You forgot your  _really_  big dick."

Shiro laughs only because he hears the laugh in Keith's words. He shakes his head. "The one thing that makes me different would be that."

Keith is quiet for several seconds, and Shiro continues to prod at their food. He's genuinely terrified of burning the demon's bacon. Eventually, Keith speaks again.

"You hate your life here."

Much like Keith seconds before, Shiro smoothly answers, but his defense is too fast. "I have no idea what you're talking about. My life is easy."

Keith airily slurps his coffee. "When will humans learn easiness isn't synonymous with happiness?"

"People want to live for different reasons," Shiro answers, calm and certain. Once again, it's as if his mouth isn't his own. "Some people want to exist in peace and quiet, and then there are people who don't feel alive until they're martyring themselves. It ultimately depends. There are demons in Hell who bake bread and then there are demons like you who pilfer through soul files for fun."

"The human lectures the demon about demons," Keith murmurs, suddenly sounding far too young. His posturing has been interrupted, laid flat. "You don't know what I do in Hell."

"You're right. I don't, but I do know this definitely wasn't the conversation I thought I'd be having after last night."

Keith takes the conversation's wheel and jerks it to the side. "Where did you get that necklace?"

Shiro blinks, then realizing, touches the necklace he's worn for years. He scrunches his brow and drags out his first syllable.

"My childhood house was near these old woods, and when I was really young, the neighbor kids and I spent all day hanging out in them; tree climbing, vine swinging, howling or whatever. We were playing hide and seek, and while I was hiding, this massive black cat showed up. It was obviously feral, but I remember thinking it wanted me to follow it and give it attention."

"That's storybook."

"Not really. The son of a bitch led me over a death-drop. We always avoided it, but I swear the bluff didn't appear until the final second. That fall scared the shit out of me. I thought I was going to die, but then I landed on wet leaves. The necklace was just sitting there by the pile."

Keith smiles, but Shiro isn't sure why. "A reward for not burdening the afterlife with another child death. It's a good luck charm."

"You could say that." Shiro lifts it off his chest and tilts his head, eyes narrowing in on its precious gleam. "Not sure why the cat wanted me to die, though."

"They favor witches and you're a man," Keith gestures at the bacon and the stove's flame lowers. "I don't think much else needs to be said about them."

Keith eats his pancakes and bacon in silence, instigates an orgy in the living room, and heads upstairs to use Shiro's shower. He takes his time, and Shiro cleans up the wax, the blood, and scrubs the chalk off his hardwood floor with Lysol wipes. He thinks he should be scared. He thinks he shouldn't be digesting this without rattling ribs, and he thinks everything is okay.

Keith returns with a towel around his hip, dripping onto the floor. They evaporate as he strides ahead, and Keith snaps his fingers. Suddenly, he's in Shiro's college hoodie, and from what Shiro assumes is his invisible Hell closet, black boxer briefs. The towel hits the ground and snakes across the floor, winding with an agile slither. It scoots up the wall and hangs itself on a nail.

Keith looks over his shoulder. "Wanna play Mortal Kombat?"

Shiro drags the rug to the center of the floor with his foot. He purses his lips. "Don't you have demon things to do?"

"Later."

Shiro swings his mouth to the side. "I still need to pack and get ready to go home."

"You think you're going home," Keith says. This isn't a question or mocking point. It's a factual observation.

"One second –" Shiro grabs his towel. "I smell like you."

"Implying that could ever be a bad thing."

Shiro showers, but he realizes his grave mistake when the water smacks his injuries and threatens to burn him alive. He returns to his bedroom with stinging skin, but after Keith kisses him against the wall and jerks him off, Shiro dresses and obediently turns on the dusty console.

He plops into his black floor chair, and without the grace offered to his friends downstairs, Keith heavily plummets toward his lap. They sit there for hours, fingers roving along the controllers and occasionally pushing at the other's hands to cheat because they're too equally matched.

Shiro doesn't know what he's doing or why Keith insists on playing Mortal Kombat, but after the sun reaches its zenith, Keith wants food again. Shiro drives them to McDonald's, and parked in the busy lot, Keith eats two large fries with his shoes on the dash, leaving behind prints. He washes down the grease with Coke, and it's then Shiro realizes Keith is as alert as a small predator, stare whipping back and forth between every small movement outside the Range Rover.

"You're a little on edge," Shiro observes.

Keith takes another bite. "It's a habit when I'm here."

"Bad experiences from before?"

"I guess."

After a ruminating silence, Keith tells Shiro to make out with him. Ever the team player, Shiro goes in for the kill.

Keith, a demon who wears activewear and has a kinship with Liu Kang's fatality, kisses him better than anyone else he's ever sucked tongues with. Keith should taste like salted fries, but it's all autumn smoke and hands prowling for an anchor. In seconds, Shiro's puddy on leather seats.

"In the backseat," Keith says against Shiro's mouth. "On your back."

"This is a public parking lot in broad daylight."

"You have tinted windows. Also, you don't know if they'll be able to see us or not. I can make a lot of things happen, Shiro."

Shiro realizes this is a challenge, not a promise.

Granted, he only realizes it's not a promise  _after_  the police car pulls in behind them and the cop raps his knuckles against the steamy window.

"I don't think I like you very much," Shiro whispers, balls deep in Keith's ass.

Keith absently replies while leaning forward to roll down the window. "Did you decide that before or after you started screaming for more?"

Their dicks are far too free to be speaking to a cop, but Keith has no propriety. Shiro shouts a strangled cry and attempts to cover them both, but like taming a feather, Keith slowly pushes against his chest. Shiro becomes powerless beneath the smaller man, limbs foregoing all strength. In bitter reply, Shiro fervently prays. His parents are Catholic, so he was once an Olympic medalist for First Homosexual Encounter at a Christian Summer Camp.

Shiro is a champion of two things: college football and noncommittally asking for God's forgiveness

Keith squints but doesn't quite sneer. "Are you  _praying_?"

Shiro smacks his thigh, and in revenge, Keith bounces with his whole body weight. Moaning against his will, Shiro's noise makes Keith smile. He finishes rolling down the window.

"Hey, Mr. Officer," Keith says, completely fearless and perfectly even. Shiro slides a hand up Keith's stomach, entranced by him again. "Did we do something wrong?"

Shiro can't face the man. He refuses. This is not how he imagined spending his Thanksgiving break, but he guesses life comes at you fast. Anyway, Keith's body is a fucking gift.

"Nothing's wrong. Sorry to interrupt you two. Have a nice day."

At that, Shiro flings back his head, but the officer is already walking away. Keith rolls up the window, and for the second time, Shiro attempts to digest the fact telepathic manipulation is real. He's interrupted by Keith grabbing his chin and arching an eyebrow, showing off his fangs.

"Now then. Where were we, Shiro?"

Shiro bucks upward into Keith as a reply, and when Keith hisses, evidently pleased, Shiro swipes his tongue along his front teeth.

* * *

 

"What do you mean we're meeting a friend?"

Slurping his Four Loko and crunching on kale chips, Keith crouches and digs through a black gym bag that appeared at Shiro's feet in a cloud smelling suspiciously like anal leakage. Keith extracts a horseshoe-shaped artifact. It's red and white and block-colored as if ripped from a low-rent, 80s anime that may or may not have changed the animation industry's interface.

Shiro can't remember its name.

It doesn't matter anyway. It was just a children's cartoon. This is a metaphor.

"Plural," Keith says. "Friends."

"Apologies for my hearing comprehension," Shiro murmurs.

"Get your cochlear nerves checked."

Keith swings the bag over his shoulder. He cracks his neck and sighs, showcasing melancholy Shiro has come to accept runs through him in jolts. They've spent three days in one another's presence, brutally battering each other's orifices and sleeping in until 3 PM. After miraculously avoiding arrest, Shiro told Keith they  _had_  to finish their contract, but Keith kissed him again, and well, Keith is still here, and to be fair, Shiro is going to be a scientist, not a defense attorney.

Speaking of scientist, Keith is smart, too.

Shiro figures it comes with the territory of being alive for who knows how long, but he's an emotional intellect, too. It's hinted at in Keith's slightest remarks. At a chance encounter, one might see Keith as too cutting or graceless, but it's a gross understatement of Keith's actual person. It makes sense considering Keith has answered all the hard questions in life. He sees things pragmatically. It's honest and strangely pure, but there's nothing performative about it.

Shiro knows he's only known Keith for three days. He should stop projecting, but he swears he knows these things the same way he knows the ocean is blue and the heavens are, too.

"You're staring at me," Keith says, heading toward the bedroom door.

Shiro clears his throat and rubs his burning nose. "Sorry - I spaced out."

They clamber down the stairs, and the window panes shake due to a nearby car's bass. Most of Shiro's friends have left to stuff turkey and mashed potatoes down their gullets, but there are a few lingering bodies haunting the kitchen and hallways. During his stay, Keith turned the brothers into butlers, but now the spell is broken. Shiro spots a housemate seated on the couch with his girlfriend, chatting as if nothing's wrong. He doesn't even notice them leaving.

Shiro quirks the corner of his mouth. He trails Keith who leads them to the front porch and down cement steps.

"Why am I not surprised?" Keith whispers beneath his breath.

It doesn't take the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC)to follow his line of sight and better understand what he's commenting on.

Parked at the end of the walkway is a white Cadillac better suited for Shiro's grandmother and her fat diamond rings. Shiro realizes the bass he heard inside is coming from its speakers, but that's not what makes him stop. It's the driver and whoever is co-piloting alongside him.

The strangers are both men in their twenties. One is built like a buttered string bean and the other appears to be constructed entirely out of baked spiral hams. The Sunday dinner pair is in the middle of a breakdown, smacking their hands against whatever surface they can reach.

Shiro asks the important question. "Are they listening to Kanye?"

Like a universal obligation or something similar to Great Value string theory, they are most definitely listening to Kanye West.

Keith doesn't answer. The music stops, and he continues to walk, bag slung over his shoulder. The co-pilot who Shiro soon learns is a demon named Hunk, rolls down the window and sheepishly smiles from being caught having too much fun. Another song rolls through, and the thin-browed, runway goblin soon-to-be known as Lance shifts into view. He drums his fingers to  _Jesus Walks_ , nodding along and eying Keith's whole person. It's an interested look, shameless.

Lance flashes two rows of shark teeth. "How much for a night?"

Keith slants his hips and shoots him a casual finger gun. "Get me the President of the United States' soul and I might think about it."

"Is that your sly way of attempting to assist the greater good? Because I'll do it. If not for a slice of your strawberry rhubarb pie, then the people so they'll stop trying to summon me for a political redo. They think I'll assassinate someone, but the only real reset button is the Black Plague. I might have a little bit of the Devil in me, but Hell is already a regular fucking DMV. More souls would make it worse, and I like being invited to parties, not hated by my peers."

"I mean, I'd rather eat Keith's pie," Hunk quietly murmurs. " _Way_  less paperwork."

"Priorities," Shiro says under his breath, which catches Lance's attention. His eyes shift with icy grace, and Shiro's spine goes iron rod straight. His neck hairs lift like cactus needles.

Lance's eyes his face but settle on the black medallion hanging down Shiro's chest.

"Your new acquisition?" Lance asks.

Keith nods with a drawn-out sigh. He yanks open the backseat and tosses the bag inside, climbing in after it. Shiro follows him, and Lance continues talking, which he clearly likes to do.

"Don't tell me. Let me guess. I'm good at this. This and selling haunted dolls on eBay." Popping his neck, Lance sucks in a breath and braces himself. "His name is Takashi Shirogane. He's twenty-years-old, a Pisces -  _yikes_  - and uncut. His emotional constipation reeks like an Alabama meth lab, and his sautéed disillusion sauced by perverted suicidal ideation could win him a Michelin star. He summoned you to handle his sex addiction, which fills the emptiness inside him for only as long as the chemicals are flowing. He also mains Sonya in Mortal Kombat, which is how we know he's worth our time, but I still say Sub-Zero is the best."

Hunk counters, singsong. "Sentimentality doesn't mean the best."

Shiro thought Lance was a buttered string bean, but he's actually a blanched asparagus rod. All piss side effects implied.

"How right am I?" Lance asks Keith through the rearview mirror.

"For someone who has zero people skills, your ability to read humans will never cease to amaze me."

Hunk lifts his hand for a high five. Lance appreciatively smacks it. When they shoot one another finger guns, Shiro wonders if he should bail to his death on the freeway.

Keith has his answer. "You shouldn't bail to your death on the freeway."

"Foiled again," he says, sighing with his whole chest. Shiro tilts back his head and drops his hands over his eyes. "Are you going to tell me where we're going now?"

"Is this a hostage situation?" Hunk asks, unfazed. "Because I really like this car, and I do  _not_  feel like pushing it into the sea. Not after what happened in SLC."

"We tried dumping a car with a body inside while staying in Salt Lake," Keith explains. "For future reference, it doesn't work. Everything floats in highly concentrated saltwater."

"Why would demons need to hide a body? You're not going to get caught."

A fifth voice appears. It's feminine and flat, but also, blunt and young. "Because we're demons, not animals. It's a matter of respect."

At first, the voice is disembodied, but the air inside the car burns with electricity.

Pressure like an invisible thigh presses against Shiro's leg.

Shiro rams himself against the door, mouth open in a silent yell. He fumbles for the handle, and Lance rolls his eyes, slamming a finger against the automatic locks. Between Shiro and Keith, emerald smoke unfurls and takes on the form of a girl. She's sporting an orange pixie cut and round glasses, but she's dressed like Keith in a backward snapback and hoodie. Biting into a crinkle fry, she sweeps a bored gaze over Shiro and slowly chews, thinking.

"Who does this chump belong to?" she asks. Her eyes land on the necklace. "Never mind. Keith, this is your type. Identity crisis, guilty hair, marble abs from the Louvre."

Shiro purses his lips into a broad line, annoyance overtaking what should have been a prolonged shock. "You guys are ruthless."

"Actually, I'm Pidge," she says. Shiro opens his mouth, but she cuts in. "You're Shiro. You like space. I liked space once."

"Once," Shiro echoes.

"Dying and returning as a quasi-deity who knows the universe's secrets really takes the wonder out of the unknown."

"Oh."

She continues to chew, dully staring through him. "Yeah."

"You're so young. How did you die?"

Hunk, Lance, and Keith groan in unison. Shiro mouths 'what' at Keith, but it's Hunk who explains.

"That's so rude, Shiro. You don't ask people how they died. It's personal."

Shiro lifts his palms in front of his chest, facing them forward as if he's under arrest. He shifts his gaze between Pidge and Hunk, attempting to read the room. Unfortunately, Pidge remains a closed book.

"I'm sorry. I don't understand demon etiquette yet."

"Forgiven," Pidge says. She turns her gaze to Lance, and Shiro no longer exists. "Answer his question. Where are we going?"

Lance leans over the wheel and lowers his voice. "To Hell."

Shiro gasps.

"Just kidding. First, we gotta go to 7/11 because I'm starving."

Shiro sinks deeper into his seat and pretends he's not disappointed. He fiddles with his phone as Lance shifts out of park and floors the gas pedal, forcing the wheels to eat asphalt.

Only after Lance runs two red lights threatens to turn an old woman into Smucker's strawberry jam does he decide to explain. "We're going to meet Allura."

Shiro waits for more information, which no one offers.

He drags his knuckles along his jaw and prompts them. "I don't know what Allura means."

"You'll see," Keith says.

Lance makes a snack pit stop, and from the gas station, drives the contingent toward a mountainous state park fifty minutes out. Shiro watches the peaks climb like a play transitioning between scenes, but their majesty is lost on him.

Rather than appreciate the sublime, Shiro wonders whether or not he's going to die, which he figures he's had coming. After all, he was the idiot who summoned a demon without considering the consequences, so an untimely death might as well be a subset of natural selection.

To be fair, a part of him didn't genuinely believe he'd be successful. Studying rocket science really lowers the odds in that department, but hindsight is 20/20, he supposes.

Shiro figures he might need to change his major.

Before he can dwell on his academic debacle, Keith rolls down the window. The car fills with wind, and Shiro tugs his beanie over his ears, too nervous to protest the climate change. In Keith's hand is the thing he referred to as a 'bayard.' Shiro still isn't sure what it does, but Keith interrupts Shiro's thoughts for the second time when he effortlessly tugs his torso through the car window. The engine accelerates with damning rev, and Lance chuckles like a cheap villain.

Shiro stares at Pidge, expecting a reaction.

But Pidge doesn't care. She's absorbed in the game on her phone, wholly uninterested in those around her. Hunk, too. He's scrolling through a  _Bon Appétit_  article.

Lance whips the car onto a gravel road.

"Keith —" Shiro lets his thought hang unfinished.

Keith doesn't respond and pulls himself onto the roof with certain strength. Shiro refuses to lunge and yank him back inside, but he wants to. He  _really_  wants to, actually. The only reason he doesn't is the fear the startled fall might make like butter and churn Keith beneath the rolling tires. Demons and dying seem complicated, but understanding Keith's subtle vanity, the aesthetic devastation of being crushed would likely be enough to damn Shiro. Rather than be a doomed knight, Shiro faces forward and pretends Keith knows exactly what he's doing.

"He's fine," Pidge says, thumbs tapping faster and faster. "Stop shaking your knee. I can't concentrate."

Shiro doesn't see the moment the bayard in Keith's hand combusts into glitter and transforms into a white and red sword, and he doesn't have privy to the torrid stare fronting Keith's headlong determination. Keith's jaw sets, and before anyone else, he spots a dead end wearing a glaring black and yellow sign shouting about an oncoming cliff. From there, Keith can see how the grassy precipice overlooks a two-hundred-foot drop wearing forestry like an apron. Disenchanted, he drinks in the view as if it's fair-weather and then jogs back to the trunk.

The car slams through the sign and Shiro yells.

Keith registers Shiro's scream like a gunshot at a marathon. He clenches the bayard handle, and extracting a purple dagger from the wind, sprints forward. As Keith runs, the purple dagger extends into a curved sword that matches the bayard's length. By the time Keith reaches the Cadillac's nose, the car's front wheels are in the midst of lifting off the edge. Grunting, his front left foot slams down, and with a muscular leap, Keith projects himself ahead of the vehicle.

Shiro is still shouting, oblivious.

Fully aerial, Keith's eyes focus on the uncrossable space before him and the car. It's then he spots an invisible target that exists like a smell.

Lance laughs at Shiro's sheer terror, and Keith smirks. He heaves his body weight, and using his arms and torso, throws himself into a circular spin, simultaneously chucking the bayard. The sword slams against an invisible wall, perfectly stuck in the air, but when the second sword follows, the unseeable veil combusts into black smoke. The vapor curls, bulbous and entirely opaque. A green membrane pulses from its surface, and Keith flashes white teeth.

Keith's feet return to the roof, and inside, Shiro gawks at the windshield. The smoke becomes transparent and reveals a tattered portal opening onto a worn highway. It's framed by cloudless purple skies. The car's wheels roughly collide with the road and force Lance to overcorrect.

"Damn, Shiro!" Lance's words carry from the car to Keith. "You act like you've never seen a wormhole before!"

* * *

 

They're technically not in hell but a realm Pidge likens to a neighboring country or an annoying neighbor, whichever Shiro prefers. It's called Galra, and due to Pidge's lack of elaboration, Shiro gets the feeling he's expected to already know what that means. He doesn't, and for the millionth time, he's a scientist with a shattered belief system. This means there are a hundred-thousand questions fumbling over one another in his head, desperate for the finish line.

Shiro spills. "This is basically a counter-reality. If it's like a neighboring country, then there are more places like this."

Pidge turns off her phone, wearily exhales, and extends her hand to help Keith climb back inside the car. Keith drops into the seat. As if invisible hands are grooming him back into his predatory glamor, Keith's windswept appearance untangles itself before Shiro's eyes.

"There are more," Keith confirms. "Think of them like you would planets. Far and few in between, but also, more than your brain can conceptualize outside exponents."

"You guys are spiritual aliens," Shiro says.

Lance looks over his shoulder, face shadowed by the unnatural purple cast. "That's a new one. I like it. Can we talk to the Big Guy about this? I think we should petition for a name change."

Keith deflates. "It's not spiritual. It's way more complicated than that. As people who were once humans, we don't trust humans to get it."

"So you turn yourselves into parodies?"

"People were afraid of us once," Keith says, spinning his hat forward. He tilts back his head and yanks down the bill, crossing his arms for sleep. "Before the Enlightenment."

Hunk scoffs. "You mean before the internet."

Keith smiles to himself but doesn't add anything. He rests his temple against the window, and he shuts down for the rest of the ride. Shiro watches him, wondering why Keith's frustrated sleeping spells make him anxious. It doesn't make sense until Shiro realizes demons don't always breathe. Keith is too still, too unmoving, and as always, too familiar in such peculiarities.

"Is it weird to stop breathing?" Shiro asks the car.

No one says anything for a long while, but it's because they're thinking, not prepared to mock Shiro for asking the hard questions.

"Yes and no," Hunk carefully answers, unsure. "It's like any habit. You can break it after a while. When we're around humans, we have to imitate the motions, and it's weird. Some demons never stop doing it for that reason. It's kinda like a security blanket. One you've had since you were a baby. There's something really sentimental about breathing."

"Who would've thought breathing could become sentimental?" Shiro says. The question is for himself, not the demons who know it as hard fact.

"But there are some demons who've never breathed," Lance thoughtfully adds.

Pidge twists her mouth to the side and kicks her feet between the front seats. She picks at her black jean shorts, staring through the car's dash. "They're the lucky ones."

Shiro side glances at her, and for some reason, all he can think is she's as familiar as Keith.

Lance chauffeurs them through an extensive nothingness that makes Indiana look like it has a personality. There's an hour where Shiro questions whether or not they're advancing. The repetitive fields fly past in a loop, purple after purple. Eventually, the fields part like the Red Sea. They offer Shiro and his fellow passengers rows of silver skyscraper peering over hills.

Shiro shifts forward, breathing over Hunk's shoulder. The city's collective blue light climbs toward two rising moons, but it can't seem to penetrate the purple pollution.

They drive into the city Lance calls Daibazaal, but the bizarre name is filed into the back of Shiro's brain. The forefront is enraptured by glitzy neon lighting. In all colors, it pours from the surplus of signs that climb sixty-story buildings. Shiro can't recognize or read their characters, but they've been battered by time and whatever climate exists within the Galra realm.

"How big is this place?" Shiro asks. "Compared to Earth cities."

Pidge nudges Keith awake. "Call it a lesser Chicago with a Las Vegas attitude. There's nothing else around for miles. You'll even hit a desert if you keep driving."

Keith blinks awake, but his eyes slide onto Shiro before the city. When he does take in his surroundings, Keith doesn't necessarily react. His eyes soften, and Shiro couldn't begin to guess what that moonstruck thought might've been. If breathing is sentimental, then there was no telling what emotion could be elicited by a gridlocked city like Daibazaal.

Pidge's phone rings in her palms. She answers and digs a finger into her ear, twisting it much too hard.

"We're almost there, Allura. I know we're late but — no, there wasn't a struggle, not even an argument. It's fine. He's just an idiot. Hey — can you tell Coran to stop sending me formal emails about these meetings? He can call me. It's all the same, you know?"

Keith knuckles an eye and exhales. "It makes him feel important, Pidge."

She flicks earwax off her finger, ignoring Keith and listening to this Allura person. Pidge responds with a series of grunts and exasperated raspberries.

"He doesn't know," Pidge promises. "But he has it. I swear."

Rightfully, Shiro furrows his brow. Dread hammers his back like rain on a windshield, but when Pidge hangs up, he disregards the itch to ask. He has a feeling she wouldn't answer anyway.

"She's impatient," Pidge says.

"Yeah, well —" Lance grips the steering wheel, stalled by a red light. "She's a princess, too. Patience can't be much of a virtue with a title like that."

"Princess," Shiro says.

"She was a princess." Keith clears his throat. He's still trying to enter the waking world. "You'll see."

Lance parallel parks the car a block away from their destination. Wherever they are is a bustling bar scene, but Shiro doesn't retain the multiple blinking signs or warped building fronts. He's too busy sweating due to the not-human entities strolling by with their owl-shaped heads and hairy four-finger hands. They're bipedal, dressed in clothing Shiro might have found in his nearest Urban Outfitters, but when they talk, it's garbled and foreign, full of teeth and many tongues.

"They smell fear," Keith says after Hunk and Lance begin to rule the conversation with their inside jokes. Keith slides a hand onto Shiro's shoulder. "Nothing is going to happen to you, Shiro. You're in good company. Anyway, they don't eat humans on this end of the city."

Lance cackles at what Shiro hopes is a jest.

Shiro attempts to reason with his quaking, but when seafoam green snake people in gray cloaks float past, he reaches for Keith's reassuring hand. Keith swiftly laces their fingers.

"Almost there," Keith says, not encouraging but not derisive.

Pidge suddenly spins on her toes, and with little enthusiasm to match her animation, gracefully gestures at a padded blue door. It's double Shiro's height and shaped like a crescent moon. Unlike its neighbors, there are no signs hinting at what might lie within.

"The castle," Pidge says.

"It's _not_  a castle," Keith whispers, biting through his smile. He gives himself a temporary snaggletooth.

"Don't let Princess Allura hear you say that," Hunk warns, tugging the door's star-shaped handle.

The castle isn't a castle, but when Shiro enters after Lance, he decides it maintains the same awe-inspiring relevance only a palace could. A grand palace on the moon more like.

"Aliens," Shiro confirms.

Under his feet is a white floor emitting dense, fuzzy light. Its sleepy haze is interrupted when Shiro steps forward, releasing a muted purple glow beneath his shoes. At first, he thinks everyone's feet create the same color, but Keith's become red, Lance's blue, Hunk's yellow and Pidge's green. The color spectrum isn't lost on him, and Shiro wonders if this is the universe's attempt to tell him he's gayer than he originally thought.

This is likely.

The castle is a space-themed dive bar. As if it shoved Ridley Scott's aesthetic through an ethereal juicer, the glowing floors meld into a lunar waterfall bar halfway across the circular room. Along the bar's face is piping reminiscent of a stone slab stucco-ed with thick ammonite fossils. The surrounding walls are an industrial aesthetic imitating other coiling shells, but they're curtained by scaling neon signs that mock human space exploration.

Behind the bar is a man with orange hair, a waxed handlebar mustache and cut biceps. He's surprisingly human compared to his horse headed patron with four arms and a black mini dress. His ears are pointed, and when he speaks, Shiro catches a glimpse of fangs. His accent is Australian, and Shiro realizes he's rattling off perfect English.

"That horse speaks English," Shiro whispers.

"Rude," Lance says, but Hunk laughs.

The customers are far and few in between, and the music throws itself around the room like rhythmically shattering glass.

At a levitating table is an impossibly tall and lean woman with heaping white hair, straight across bangs and pink triangles tattooed beneath candy blue eyes. She's dark skinned with slender shoulders and she's holding a wine glass filled with a neon green drink. In the other hand is a simple black fountain pen. She's endlessly scribbling on a ledger, and like Keith's laughter and Pidge's appearance, something about her essence is far too familiar for Shiro.

"I know her," Shiro distantly whispers. "I've met her before."

Keith swivels his gaze onto Shiro, but he quirks the corner of his mouth. Their fingers are still laced, but neither one thinks to give it the seam ripper. "That's impossible."

"Allura, my queen!" Lance shouts.

Her eyes dart up and they're swiftly followed by her nose and a light laugh. She flashes a smile so sweet and true Shiro isn't sure how he's supposed to see her as a cunning demon associated with Keith. That's surely the point, though. Already, he's discovered demons aren't one thing. There are Keith demons (whatever that is), horse demons, owl demons, and now, model princess demons. All have different designs, desires, and hypothetically, purposes.

Shiro learns they love, too.

It makes Shiro wonder if he could be a demon. There's an otherness about them he likes. As it stands, they're not uncontained but they're anything but contained. Shiro envies them. Ever since childhood, he's wrestled with the disparity between himself and everyone else he's tried to befriend. He doesn't hate himself either, which almost makes it worse. He's tried to change.

Allura stands to give Lance a hug, and he engulfs her. He leans daringly forward with both arms encircling her waist, and then leans back to lift her off her feet. Allura's face falls into Lance's neck, and her high ponytail tosses itself from side to side like a swaying ship.

Demons have friendships and that means maybe romances. The latter is a daunting thought, and Shiro casually removes his hand from Keith's grip.

Allura is freed from Lance's hold, and she looks at Shiro over his shoulder. Her smile evaporates, and as if she's seen a ghost, she clears her throat and turns her gaze to Keith, plainly wearing concern. Whether or not they share a telepathic message, Shiro doesn't know, but the way Keith nods and starts toward the table suggests they did.

"Well, look at what the sphinx dragged in," the bartender shouts, leaning over the bar. He squints at Shiro but smiles. "One, two, three, four — all right. I'll be there in five ticks."

"Ticks are seconds," Pidge explains. "Time measurement isn't too different from Earth's, but it's enough to confuse a human's sleep cycle."

Shiro doesn't know how to introduce himself. Allura helps him, stopping Shiro before he can sit. She extends her hand.

"Allura," she says, letting her eyes rove. "You're Shiro. You've very much Shiro."

"More like Shiro Lite," Hunk says under his breath.

"I'm Shiro," Shiro confirms, taking her hand. "Not Shiro Lite."

"No," Allura promises. "No you're not."

Rather than give a firm shake, Shiro slips back his palm until their fingertips meet and smacks her palm with two hard claps. Allura smiles and pounds her fist on top of Shiro's, suddenly taking one step forward. She intentionally stalls in the step, and Shiro mirrors her hesitant step. With an easy laugh that doesn't sound like his own, Shiro jerks back in time with Allura. The two fall into a choreographed dual-handed shake. It fires from Shiro's muscle memory with undeterred confidence, and when they stop, Shiro feels much too present.

"A little rusty," she says when they're done. "But not bad."

Their smiles clash with the stunned onlookers. Pidge is the only one who isn't watching. Her eyes are glaring at the pulsing green beneath her shoes.

"I don't know what that was," Shiro admits, still smiling. "Did someone cast a spell?"

"The spell casting is all you, man," Hunk offers, then clearing his throat. "You're the warlock here, not us."

"Not really a warlock," Keith whispers.

Keith's arms are crossed, hugging his chest tight. It's childlike, too defensive, but there isn't a pout there. He's a clean type of distressed.

"Sorry," Allura whispers to Keith as he sits down. "I didn't prompt it."

"It's whatever, Allura."

They take their seats at Allura's table and the redheaded demon appears with a tray. He deposits pint glasses filled with what Shiro guesses is demonic beer. It sits in the glass like artificial cherry syrup, but when he sips it, the hops flavor runs down his throat like clean water.

"This is Coran," Allura says, but Coran is already staring at him, rapidly blinking.

"Is this what humans call surreal?" Coran asks.

* * *

 

It would be nice to know how summoning a demon using a WikiHow article landed him in a neon fever dream, but no one thinks to drop Shiro such vital information.

There's rapid talk about a guy named Zarkon, corruption, and what it means to be a demon who doesn't want to become one with humanity's end. Rebellion slips off Keith's tongue with even intonation, and sometimes, he even throws dry insults that have zero context for Shiro.

"So we tell him," Lance says, leaning toward Keith as Allura watches on. Shiro has a feeling he's the  _him_. "Then we pick up where we left off."

"Stop grandstanding with stupid and think for a minute. Humans are too delicate to involve. We can't involve him as he is now. He'll be ripped in half like a post-it note."

Lance wrinkles his nose, and for a split-second, distorts his features into something wicked and bat-like. "I'm not stupid."

"Then prove it because I'd never guess."

"I'm going to give you a swirly," Lance says, threat thinner than air.

Keith proceeds to pantomime jerking off. He's entirely expressionless, and his words are equally as dead. "That's my fetish."

"Was the sex worth it, Shiro?" Allura asks over Pidge's short laugh. "I want to know. Because I can't seem to see how."

Shiro doesn't dare lie. She's a demon. She'll know. "I wouldn't say it wasn't worth anything."

She shakes her head, chin propped high on knuckles. "Will wonders ever cease? Humans have no threshold for sexual conquests. It's a tale as old as time."

"As if he ever had them before," Lance murmurs.

Keith's nostrils flare, and he kicks him as hard as he can under the table. "It wasn't like that before."

Shiro sips his beer and tries not to stare at any one thing too long.

"We can give him a choice," Pidge suggests, tracing her beer's rim with a tired thoughtfulness. "Keith, you're the one who broke a cardinal rule and forced him the opposite way."

"Keith didn't break any rule," Shiro says, but after turning to Keith who is emptily staring past Pidge, Shiro doesn't finish the thought as certain as he started it. "I summoned him, right?"

Hunk mutters 'oh man' beneath his breath and kneads the table edge.

At this point, Shiro rights his posture. "Should have asked this about three hours ago, but what's going on? Clearly, it's something big. I do have ears. I know I matter. Communicate with me."

Keith licks his teeth and exhales. He closes his eyes, and if he's taking safety scissors to silk, rips the words free. "If you died, then would you come back as a demon or a human being?"

Pidge starts to say something accusing, evidently unhappy with the way Keith phrased the question, but Shiro doesn't hear their bickering. He's too busy noticing how his thighs are melting through the chair beneath them. Shiro slips, falling off his seat like a melted ice cream scoop. Blood splits through his devastated skin, but no one reacts. In fact, the moment freezes.

Shiro parts his lips to shout, but his mouth dribbles down his chin and throat.

He becomes the white wax crusted on his dorm floor, but no one is paying attention. Shiro determinedly shouts inside his skull, but he still can't emit a  _real_  sound. It doesn't matter anyway. The world around him becomes static, and like a bomb, collapses only to combust into glaring lavender light. The bar is gone, and he's standing with Keith panting beside him. Somehow, he knows they're attempting to assure each other they're ready to die and together.

"It's okay," Shiro promises Keith.

All Shiro sees is a curved black blade speeding toward his burning forehead. He's black armor, and Keith moves to throw himself in the way of the blood.

There's a fatal  _thunk_.

Shiro comes to his senses, but he's on his feet at the table, not melted on the floor like Dairy Queen's dysentery. Aside from Keith, the others are staring at him, anticipating an answer.

"Both," Shiro starts, but he hesitates when Keith sighs. "Why can't you be both? Why are you asking me that?"

"You can't have your cake and eat it too," Keith says. "It doesn't work like that."

"I'll tell you why," Lance offers, and Keith grits his teeth. "Because you were once one of us. At least you were until Keithy boy over here didn't let you reincarnate as a demon because supposedly you hesitated when given the choice, and he took it upon himself to make you human because -" Lance sucks in a deep breath. "-  _Shiro loved humans, Lance_.  _I didn't know the black bayard would disappear with him and doom all free will in the process, but that's what he wanted, and after everything he did for me, I couldn't deny him what he wanted. He never asked anything of us, Lance. Shiro, who is one person, deserved to have what he wanted over the universe._ "

Hunk grins into his glass. "Keith totally doesn't sound like that."

"Lance," Allura chides and grabs Keith's hand.

Keith's eyes burn a hole through the table, but Shiro can't look at him for long. His heart is beating harder than a Kitchenaid. Because this has to be a joke, Shiro glances at each demon, waiting for one to laugh. When they reply with their own expectant stares, Shiro inhales.

Lance leans forward and drum two fingers. He stops, and even though the music is still blaring, everything feels quiet. "That thing you're touching is the black bayard."

Shiro drops it and wipes his both of his sweaty palm on his pants. "What's a bayard?"

"Ancient magic," Allura says. "I'll keep it simple for now, but each of you has one, and when they're brought together, they summon a monster that can only be controlled as a unit. This monster is the only hope we have for maintaining the universe's free will. When Keith pushed you toward humanity, you took the bayard with you. It wasn't a big deal until we found Pidge."

Pidge shifts in her seat. "They were waiting for me to die, basically. Whether or not you were around, the four of you couldn't summon the monster until I showed up."

"Pidge," Shiro says, brain beginning to leak and fill crack he hadn't even known existed. He breathes back through his nose, and for a split-second, sees Matt sitting in front of him, sipping from a pint glass. Shiro's expression drifts. "Katie -"

She flinches but recovers, dropping an unmoved expression like a thick curtain.

"Don't call me that. No one's called me that in years, but congratulations, Shiro. You figured out what I thought was obvious. Matt's my little brother and fate has an algorithm. Thankfully for me, that proximity isn't what matters right now. We need to deal with how you're a human being and how whether or not you have the bayard we can't summon anything. The force of the magic alone would invert your skin. Ever wonder what it'd be like to expose all of your nerves?"

"No," Shiro says. It's too truthful, but he's thinking and thinking  _hard_. Thinking probably isn't the right word. He's downloading. Connecting to the moment with the same velocity as AOL dial-up. The tone crackles inside his head. Static screams. "Here's a better question. Is any of this real? Don't make me give you all the statistics for being roofied at a fraternity party."

Hunk inspects his nails, collecting the dirt beneath them. "Those hickeys on your neck look pretty real to me."

Shiro ignores that. "Someone give me guidance here. You were talking about a rebellion, but what's at risk? Do I absolutely have to?"

"That's the least Shiro thing I've ever heard from Shiro," Allura whispers. She meditatively breathes in and out. "You don't have to help us, but I'll play my guilt card. Without you, the decision to deny us might not be a choice for others in the near future. Zarkon wants universal control, and it will disintegrate all order. The universe might not be able to even sustain it."

For someone who felt like midterms had wrung him out, this is a daunting task. Shiro looks toward the bar's front door, contemplates sprinting, but he knows he's trapped.

"How can I help?" Shiro asks. "What do I have to do to use the bayard?"

Keith answers the question before anyone else can try. It sings like an omission of guilt. "You have to die, Shiro."

* * *

 

Back inside the Cadillac, the space between the castle and Keith's apartment smears like watercolor. He didn't say anything else after Keith laid him to waste, but no one seemed to expect him to, so Shiro figures all is well. They're letting him pickle in the undeniable obligation. That's what it is, too. It's an obligation Keith himself tried and failed to save him from. There's a lot of nondescript weight, but also, a lot of questions being answered.

"Ever have strange things happen to you?" Lance calmly asks from behind the wheel. "Things that a normal human being can't do? Avoidance is a big demonic trait. Look at Keith."

Pidge reaches forward and punches his arm. "Stop railing him. Come back to Keith when you've actually been in love."

"I have been in love!"

Hunk rolls his eyes and bitterly laughs. "Loving yourself doesn't count."

Shiro doesn't say anything, but his brain links to the most recent incident in the hallway with Ron and then how Keith manipulated the police officer. Were they really that different?

He grabs the bayard hanging from his neck and strokes the surface. As much as he wants to, he can't force himself to remember life before his human one. Something struck him in the bar, but no one commented on him standing to his feet, so apparently, it doesn't matter too much. It's rude, but he wants to ask how he and Keith died even though he thinks he knows the answer.

"Let the guy sleep on it," Hunk says, and he sounds apologetic for being sharp. "Imagine going from a simple human to an ex-war champion overnight."

"I was a champion," Shiro says and he doesn't know if he should cry or laugh. "To think, I thought being able to do a keg stand on my own was a hard-won battle."

* * *

 

The apartment building is wedged between an outside restaurant concealed by tattered noren and what looks to be a shoe store for the standard six-footed demon. Outside the four-story apartment complex shaped like a tin hour-glass, Shiro breathes in frier fumes as the Cadillac burns rubber, and he wonders if it's even safe for a human to consume demonic food. Keith ignores Shiro's thought and explains he used to live outside the city, but when Shiro died, part of the income went with him. After selling their place, he returned to an urban studio and started bartending.

Shiro tries to thumb through those implications. "We lived together."

"I moved in with you," Keith explains and unlocks the building's front door. He makes a beeline for the single elevator across the dingy foyer. It smells like hay. "You took me in after I tried to mug you. It was by chance I was able to pick up the red bayard. Like Pidge said, proximity."

Shiro follows him into the cramped elevator. "Sounds like I was nice."

"Infuriatingly nice," he says, but it's quiet, clearly a painful thought. Keith smacks the button and the doors open. "You're basically the mirrored image of him. Selfish and harsh but then subtly considerate and caring. Shiro's selfishness was a battle for him. He kept to himself until he felt he couldn't anymore, and then he wanted to secure the human race simply because."

The steel elevator bolts upward, but Shiro doesn't shift. "I am Shiro."

"You physically feel like him," Keith says. There's a joke there, but it must be for himself and only himself because Shiro doesn't get it. "You worry like him. On the inside, I mean."

"I don't like bothering people."

"Shut up," Keith whispers, but he rubs a smile off his lips.

Keith's studio is simply a studio. It's borderline barren with matching steel appliances and a mattress on the floor. Multiple takeout boxes are stacked on the coffee table constructed from a board and a couple cinder blocks, and there are papers and poster boards spread across the floor, connected by red strings. Shiro tries not to stare at the post-it notes and painstakingly drawn up research, wanting to respect Keith's privacy, but then he spots the picture frames on the wall.

Seeing himself in a moment that's clearly not a moment that belongs to him confirms Coran's question about the word _surreal_.

In the picture, Shiro is wearing black makeshift armor reminiscent of something out of Mad Max. He's beside Keith who's in a similar style but it's red, and somehow, more shameless. It's the fearless way he keeps his arms exposed. Here Shiro looks older, tired. There's a brutal scar slashed across his bridge, but current Shiro isn't taken aback until he realizes this clone's right arm isn't human. It's hulking and black like Keith's fingertips, and he can't help but see it as a monstrous extension of what looks to be a human person.

But he's smiling, and he's smiling at Keith who's smiling back.

"I was older than you," Shiro says, knowingly. He grins. "No wonder you're disappointed."

Keith flits his stare aside and crosses his arms. "Don't other think it."

"God, what am I there? Like thirty-six?"

"A little over three-thousand," Keith aloofly answers and begins picking up garbage. His nose is a hot pink that fills Shiro with sick satisfaction. He saves Keith the dignity and doesn't comment. Anyway, Keith changes the subject. "Three millennia of experience gone."

"I can't imagine looking like that and wanting to be human. I couldn't lift that hard for ten years straight and get a bicep like that." Shiro clears his throat and decides to stop evading his shock with poorly timed humor.

He finds another picture. It's of Keith and Other Shiro outside a desert shack, dressed down in casual clothing ruined by oil. Keith's hair is pulled back, and he's sitting on a red bike-thing with two massive hover turnstiles. Shiro is facing him on the other end in mid-conversation and pointing at Keith. He's clearly lecturing, but Keith's cocked eyebrow is mocking him.

"Who took these? They're good."

"Lance –" Keith shakes his head and rubs a temple as he continues to gather molding boxes. "He looked up to you a lot and resented me for being your…  _whatever_ …"

"Whatever doesn't tell me much," Shiro murmurs. The pictures don't look explicitly romantic, so Shiro wonders if he was a demonic closet case with Keith. "How old are you?"

"In human context, I might as well be twenty-three. Shiro was about thirty."

That explains a lot, Shiro decides. He cuts Keith some slack and stops snooping. When Keith finishes cleaning in silence, Shiro realizes Keith didn't need to touch the trash. He could have willed it away with magic. It was solely to anchor himself in place. Something for his hands.

"We were lovers at one point, and this is a cliché soulmate situation where destiny is bringing us back together."

Keith tilts his head back against the wall, smiling. "You have no idea what you're talking about, but go off, Shiro."

"Don't tell me I'm wrong. I  _feel_ it. I loved you more than anything at one point, didn't I?"

This apparently pleases Keith. He tilts his chin up and smiles but sweeps the gaze away with his thoughts.

"We were never lovers. By the way, lovers is a really pedestrian word." Keith pushes himself off the wall. "You weren't there for it when you were you and not _this_."

Offended but too conversational to ask what exactly _this_  is, Shiro drives forward. "You knew you were losing out, Keith. We were both losing out. The whole world was losing out, and you still made me _this_."

Keith lifts and drops his shoulders. "Shiro, nothing in your world is free, and Hell isn't any better."

He considers this, but he realizes he doesn't have a witty response, so he breathes hard to give the illusion he does.

"I outed my feelings from my past self, didn't I?"

"You could say that." Keith swipes his nose with his thumb and laughs. The laugh breaks and Shiro learns demons can cry, too. They can also be ashamed and conceal their tears with a sharp cough and jaw stretches. "They were implied before, but they weren't acted on."

"You were young."

Keith rolls his eyes and clears his throat. "A lecture when you don't even remember who I am."

For Keith's sake, Shiro drops the topic with an apologetic look. Keith brushes it aside and offers Shiro a beer. They're in a strange liminal space where the other paladins are trying to give Shiro time to consider his options, but Shiro knows he technically doesn't have any options.

He thinks about his pious mother who somehow absorbed a demon's soul into her womb, and he thinks about his dad who nurtured demonic tendencies Shiro knew had made him a terrible person. After years of striving to digest compassion like a normal person, Shiro sees there's a difference between nurture and nature. He's the human equivalent of a wild animal, but that doesn't feel as derogatory as it sounds. It's also not a moral free pass because Shiro  _does_  have  _some_  morals.

Keith makes a phone call and orders food from the restaurant next door. The owner gives a surprised gasp when Keith requests two orders, and Keith drifts into a foreign language that clicks and twists like Ukrainian wedged between Chinese and French. Shiro blinks at the sound, and when Keith hangs up, flustered and evidently exhausted, Shiro smiles at him from the bed.

"So what did we do in the desert?"

"You were an engineer and pilot," Keith explains and grabs two beers from the half-fridge. "I was just a pilot, but we did odd jobs around the desert for smaller communities. There wasn't a lot of money in it. You were a demon who could charm a demon, so it was mostly bartering."

"Do you still have the bike in the picture?"

He doesn't answer until he's handing Shiro a can. His delivery is simple, but the time it took to answer is a true monologue. "I needed a down payment for this place."

More guilt flushes through Shiro, and he trustingly drinks from the can, fingering the tab. He pushes back his hoary bangs, and dread like reading a text that says 'can we talk' knots Shiro's stomach. This guilt doesn't belong to him. The urge to hold Keith's face and kiss him doesn't belong to him, but he knows Keith deserves the atonement all the same. Though young and sometimes purposefully idiotic, Shiro can weigh worth. Fighting for the universe or preserving what could be left of his one out of several billion life? It's an easy choice to make.

An easy choice he doesn't discuss until he's done sucking down greasy noodles and poking at a larva shaped dumpling Keith swears isn't a bug.

"How should I die?" Shiro asks. He can't tell if he's asking Keith or if he's asking himself. "Do I leave a note and slit my wrists in the bathtub?"

It's harrowing, but he would do it for the universe. Shiro never knew he had it in him until then, but he's also not the person he thought he was, and there's power in knowing himself.

Keith slowly lowers his two-pronged eating utensil. While he doesn't look at Shiro, he does stare through the pictures of them together. To be honest, Shiro has never considered being sincerely loved and missed. He wonders if that was his secondary personality repressing heartbreak. It's heavy-handed, but so is this entire situation. There's a nagging voice itching in Shiro's ear that says he's mourned and missed Keith his whole life.

"I would do it," Keith says. It's a martyr's statement, and Shiro thinks about pancakes and Keith not understanding people who don't give their existence to the concept of living. "I can make it convincing."

"Don't punish yourself when I hesitated and you wanted to do right by me."

Keith sets his chin on a palm and pokes at his meal. "Think about it more before you decide."

Thinking on it involves significantly more fucking than thought strumming, but when Keith kisses him, lips parting with an avidity that makes Shiro feel like he could slip through the mattress, his brain reverts to halcyon days. There's evidence to suggest he's been in love since gestation, and Shiro finally understands something. It's why he never let himself be with anyone more than once. The physical pleasure was fleeting, but emotional attachment had always been a pre-existing fixture. For two decades, his soul patiently waited for Keith, and Shiro knows too well he would have waited for Keith until his dying breath. After that, he would have returned.

Shiro clings to Keith's taut biceps and slows their fucking until Keith's rhythmic gasping beneath him becomes irregular. He glides a kiss along Keith's jawline. It changes the tone, and Keith impatiently seeks out his mouth, saying his name like a chant. The next kiss is too rough, too wet and much too apologetic. Shiro grapples Keith's hair and anchors them both.

They spend two days in Daibazaal before Shiro convinces Keith he's okay with letting go of his humanity. Sitting in the castle and smoking hookah, Keith firmly kisses Shiro on the mouth only to be stopped by Coran's shameless whistle. Embarrassed, he calls Lance and asks for a ride.

* * *

 

As awful as it is, Shiro has to make light of dying. Otherwise, the selfish guilt considering his family and friends will make him rethink.

Shiro guesses his hesitancy is fair. Demons are notoriously tricky, and this could very much be just that. A trick meant to ensnare his mediocre soul. Had he never seen the pictures in Keith's house, Shiro knows he would have resisted.

"Deciding on how to die sucks when you want to make the death easy on your loved ones, but only an idiot thinks there's such thing as easy death."

Shiro is seated on his bed when he says this. Keith is drawing a reverse summoning circle on the floor that's meant to tether them together even more. It's to ensure Keith will be able to find him in the provisional realm and guide him back to Galra.

Feeling his philosophy, Shiro keeps talking. "You never stop mourning, you know? There's no way to do this and make sure the hole in my mother's chest ever fills up."

"There's no dignity or beauty in death," Keith adds, striking a line through his handiwork. "Whether or not you're a human or demon, we leave behind symbolic shells for our worlds to manage alone. It's never about laying the person to rest. It's the start of laying our feelings to rest and smoothing them out enough to walk along for the rest of our lives. You can try and make it easy, Shiro, but your parents will feel this until they die. This is a very real sacrifice."

"So you buried me," Shiro says, surprised he never considered that before. "I thought my old body was waiting in the ether."

"We're going to try to replicate it, but cloning spells are ancient magic. I can't promise all parts will still be there. Memories might come and go for years."

Shiro leans over his knees and continues to watch Keith work. Truly, there's an artistry to his ability to draw perfect circles. After a moment, he hops off the bed and gets on his knees beside Keith, instinctively helping draw the symbols he didn't know he knew. Both men work in silence as Shiro's thoughts cleave away at what it means to take your life. At one point, he stops.

He clears his throat and thoughtfully looks past Keith. He narrows in on the bucket that's going to collect his blood. "Death is cataclysmic."

"It is," Keith answers, pausing to demonstrate how to properly draw a sigil. "I wish humans knew it half as well as we do."

"I think some do," Shiro softly says, and his chalk returns to scratching. "How did you die?"

Keith lifts a cutting eyebrow. "The first or the second time?"

"First time."

"I slit an emperor's throat just in time for him to rush me with a sword. It was a long time ago and in a place your history books don't care about. Some thought I was a demon even then."

There was clearly more to the story, and Shiro hoped it was one he eventually remembered.

"You like dying for causes."

Keith shrugs, and it's obvious the topic is tiring him out. "I'm still trying to figure out what the second cause was."

"Even I know that one," Shiro says and sets aside his chalk. He dusts off his hands. "Love."

Because Keith only has a five-minute interval to kill Shiro and follow his soul into the void that will take his soul, they keep it simple. Keith lets Shiro write a note. It's short. It's sweet, and regretfully thinking about Matt's layering loss, makes a point to apologize to him, too.

He signs his name knowing it's not enough. No note can embody one life.

If he wasn't certain Keith would change his mind if he did, Shiro would cry. He keeps his eyes a consistent wateriness, blocking off the implications of his actions. Internally, he knows he never fully wanted to be a human being, and by doing this, he's giving himself what he wants.

"Does it hurt?" Shiro asks, posing it as a joke.

"It's never as dramatic as we hope it'll be."

Shiro hits his knees on the summoning circle. Keith steps up behind him and affectionately pets along his cheek. Shiro turns his face into Keith's palm and kisses it, eyes fluttering shut.

Keith plans to cut his throat, seal up his body and pose it as self-harm. With one sweep of magic, the room will look like nothing happened, and they will return to Daibazaal together.

"You taught me everything I know," Keith says, continuing to sooth Shiro's nerves by carding fingers through his forelock.

"I'm pretty calm," Shiro admits against his hand. He kisses it. "It's instinct to trust you. You know, I never asked how you tracked me down in the first place."

"The Big Guy keeps a book," Keith explains. The air in the room grows humid. "Once old enough to register, demons are allowed to track summoning rituals on our phones. I had this gut feeling you'd get into something someday, especially after Pidge told me she saw someone named Shiro while haunting Matt. It was only a matter of time, honestly."

"Not the right time to ask, but how is the Big Guy letting a massive war happen?"

Keith taps his face and fondly says, "You have a lot to learn, Shiro."

"A lot to remember," Shiro corrects. This time he kisses Keith's fingertips. "I want to remember all of it, especially you."

"Big words from a guy who summoned a demon to make fun of people online. Are you sure you're going to be able to leave behind your keg parties and pledge harassment?"

Shiro can't help but laugh at himself, and perfectly timed, Keith pulls a purple dagger from the air. Keith twists Shiro's neck with both hands and elicits a wicked crack, sending a quickly forgotten sting down Shiro's spine. The man's thoughts flat line, but his heart doesn't follow. Keith takes care of that. The guttering candles roar against God, giving the middle finger and threatening to burn down the fraternity. Knowing it's much too late to hesitate, Keith lines up the dagger and wrenches back his arm, ripping open Shiro's throat with two agonized words.

"I'm sorry."

* * *

 

In the sloe celestial haze, Shiro hears a distant voice. It beams across the nothingness like a meteor shower, splitting from several different directions. He recognizes who it is, and like a slow trickle, his human memories become secondary. Shiro smiles. He tries not to laugh.

Shiro can't see yet, but a hand touches his shoulder. The weight and warmth are familiar, but not as familiar as the pained articulation that follows. "It's good to have you back."

"It's good to be back," Shiro promises. He imagines placing his hand on Keith's, comforting him, and Shiro's unspoken reassurance thickens the closing space between them. Whether or not Keith can feel it, Shiro doesn't know. "And I've missed you every second of every single day."

**Author's Note:**

> twitter @ leecawrites  
> tumblr @ fenri


End file.
